Library of Wales News

A Welsh Government project, the Library of Wales, created to ensure that Wales’ literary heritage written in English was made available to modern audiences, has reached its 50,000th sale.

Titles selected for the Library of Wales are unavailable, out-of-print, or merely forgotten. They range diversely from well-known classics by Raymond Williams, Gwyn Thomas, and Dannie Abse, to forgotten works such as Lewis Jones’s behemoth Welsh epic Cwmardy, and Turf or Stone, the ‘Welsh Wuthering Heights’, by Margiad Evans.

Their publication has done much to reignite interest in the books, with several now appearing on university reading lists, and being adapted for theatre and radio. The series currently includes 34 titles; thirteen of which are also available as ebooks, further widening the engagement of the Library of Wales with a modern audience.

“The success of the Library of Wales series highlights the importance of our long-standing literary tradition here in Wales and we congratulate the publishers Parthian on their excellent work. The continuous sales of the series also testifies to the quality of the writing and the selection of titles by series Editor, Dai Smith. Former First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, noted that the Library of Wales series was a major Welsh Government’s cultural success which the Welsh Books Council are pleased to be involved with in our efforts to promote a range of quality writing from Wales.” – Elwyn Jones, Chief Executive, Welsh Books Council

The Library of Wales is a Welsh Government and Welsh Books Council initiative, and is published by Parthian. Launched in Cardiff, London and New York in Spring 2006, the Library of Wales was designed to ensure that all of the rich and extensive literature in Wales that has been written in English is made available to readers in and beyond Wales.

The Library of Wales project was born out of an understanding that a wide literary heritage is a key component in creating an ongoing sense of modern Welsh culture and history, bringing back into play the voices and actions of the human experience that has made us, in all our complexity, a Welsh people.

“I am delighted that the Library of Wales has reached the landmark of 50,000 sales of out of print Welsh classics and am very pleased that the Welsh Govenrment has supported the scheme to make these books available, both as traditional printed copies and e-books. Providing e-books is an excellent way to make the books accessible to as wide an audience as possible, regardless of where they live and is bringing Welsh literature written in English right up to date. Literature is an excellent way of selling our nation to the world and I am sure the Library of Wales is helping to do just that, as well as keeping our literary heritage alive for future generations.” – Huw Lewis, Minister for Heritage, Welsh Assembly

Jon Gower has recently agreed to take on the challenge of reading the whole series, and has been blogging his experiences online at Wales Arts Review. His post about the first book in the series, Ron Berry’s So Long, Hector Bebb, likens Ron Berry’s writing to contemporary writer Niall Griffiths’s. Such comparisons help to explain why the Library of Wales titles are still able to engage the interest of modern readers.

Arthur Machen provides an example of the far-reaching influence of these forgotten writers: named by H. P. Lovecraft as one of the four “modern masters” of supernatural horror, he is credited with influencing horror writers like Stephen King, and has enjoyed a revival of interest since returning to print.

The Library of Wales is also partly responsible for Mari Stead Jones’s mission to continue where her father left off. Mari was eighteen when her father passed away suddenly and his papers were sealed into a large wooden chest. In 2007, Mari discovered the chest tucked away in the back of a wardrobe, full of notebooks, unpublished manuscripts and plays. Mari found herself drawn into the stories, and began to edit and rework them for a modern audience. Around this time, she was contacted unexpectedly by Dai Smith about a Library of Wales edition of Make Room for the Jester. It was speaking to Phillip Pullman, who wrote the forward to the Library of Wales edition, at the launch that convinced Mari to publish her version of Stead’s thriller Say Goodbye to the Boys (Parthian, spring 2013).

2013 will see an extensive anthology, featuring a range of short stories from Rhys Davies and Alun Richards to Deborah Kay Davies and Rachel Trezise, and an edition of poet, adventurer, and drinker, W. H. Davies’ Autobiography of a Super-tramp with its original preface by George Bernard Shaw.

The Library of Wales is a Welsh Government project designed to ensure that all of the rich and extensive literature in Wales that has been written in English will now be made available to readers in and beyond Wales. The series is published by Parthian Books. See the full catalogue at http://thelibraryofwales.com/

Our October enewsletter contains updates on news, events, book launches and special offers on classic titles in the Library of Wales range as well as related titles also published by Parthian Books.

"Dorothy Edwards is one of the most remarkable and remarkably neglected authors in the English language of the early twentieth century. Though she was celebrated briefly in her lifetime, after her suicide at the age of thirty-one in 1934, her two books, Rhapsody of 1927 and the novel Winter Sonata of 1928, went out of print. The Virago reprints of the mid-eighties, with thoughtful introductions by Elaine Morgan, were crucial acts of rescue, but Edwards deserves more. [...] At least three of the 'Rhapsody' stories - 'A Country House', 'Days', and the brilliant, allusive and enigmatic 'A Garland of Earth' - are small masterpieces. All of them are extremely controlled studies of constrained desire, loneliness and incomplete relationships." - Christopher Meredith, taken from the foreword of the Library of Wales edition of 'Rhapsody', now available on ebook.

Synopsis:

The ten stories of Rhapsody, together with the three previously uncollected pieces added to this edition, are utterly distinctive in voice and sensibility. At least three of the Rhapsody stories – ‘A Country House’, ‘Days’, and the brilliant, allusive and enigmatic ‘A Garland of Earth’- are small masterpieces. Not bad by the age of twenty-four. All of them are extremely controlled studies of constrained desire, loneliness and incomplete relationships for which Edwards was developing a non-realist world of imagery and symbolism and her own language. Music is one of the motifs. For Edwards, music represents art, but also the possibility of sexual passion which is otherwise largely unstated but is everywhere a powerful undercurrent.

About Dorothy Edwards:

Dorothy Edwards was born in 1903 in Ogmore Vale, a small mining community in Mid Glamorgan. Her father, an ardent socialist and Independent Labour Party leader, was the local school headmaster. After a scholarship to Howell’s School for Girls, Llandaf, she took a degree at Cardiff University in Greek and Philosophy, but literature was her passion and soon after graduating her short stories began to appear in magazines and journals. These were collected in Rhapsody (1927), along with several previously unpublished stories written during the nine months Edwards spent in Vienna and Florence. Her novel Winter Sonata (1928) followed shortly afterwards. She spent the following years trying to supplement her mother’s meagre pension by writing stories and articles for magazines and newspapers, and doing some extra-mural teaching at Cardiff University, but she never undertook full-time employment. After a brief period spent living in London with acquaintances from the Bloomsbury circle, Edwards committed suicide on a Cardiff railway line in 1934. A note left in her pocket at the time of her death read: ‘I am killing myself because I have never sincerely loved any human being all my life. I have accepted kindness and friendship and even love without gratitude, and given nothing in return.’

The conference is free to Swansea University students and staff and £10 for everyone else. Tickets available from the Dylan Thomas Centre. The event is part of the Dylan Thomas Festival 2013.

Raymond Williams was born in 1921 in the Welsh border village of Pandy. He taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, and in 1974 was appointed as Professor of Drama at Cambridge. His best-known publications include; Culture and Society (1958), Border Country (1964), The Country and the City (1973), Keywords (1976) and Marxism and Literature (1977).

The Library of Wales is a Welsh Government project designed to ensure that all of the rich and extensive literature in Wales that has been written in English will now be made available to readers in and beyond Wales. The series is published by Parthian Books. See the full catalogue at http://thelibraryofwales.com/

Our October enewsletter contains updates on news, events, book launches and special offers on classic titles in the Library of Wales range as well as related titles also published by Parthian Books.

A Man's Estate is another clear and perfect reason to laud the gifts bestowed on Emyr Humphreys, the most detailed chronicler of twentieth century Wales, and author of capacious, intuitive fictions, properly lauded by such scholars as M. Wynn Thomas. A Man's Estate, though weightily brooding and unburdened by too much joy, or very much redemption, uses one corner of the country to examine the stuff of life, how troubling it can be, though how easily explained. We are always wanting. And found wanting. Maybe, in the final rub our wanting is who and what we are.

The M. Wynn Thomas Prize is offered to celebrate outstanding scholarly work in the field of Welsh writing in English. There are two prize categories: the ‘Open’ category and the ‘New Scholars’ category. Essays submitted may be unpublished or published. Topics may include all aspects of Welsh writing in English as well as the inter-relationship of Welsh writing in English with cognate areas (Welsh Studies, history, cultural studies, film/media studies, translation studies, performance/theatre studies, digital humanities, comparative literature etc.).

Shortlisted essays which are unpublished will automatically be considered for publication in the International Journal of Welsh Writing in English unless the author decides otherwise.

The prize is awarded for a piece of substantial scholarship that is engagingly written. We encourage submissions that are ground-breaking in terms of subject-matter and/or methodology/disciplinarity. Essays that grapple with new ideas in an intelligent and conceptualised way are preferred.

The prize is awarded at the annual conference of the Association of Welsh writing in English, which takes place around Easter every year in Gregynog Hall (near Newtown).

The award is supported by the Learned Society of Wales, the University of Wales Press and Parthian Books.

Prize categories:

‘Open’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 6,000-8,000 words long, of the highest scholarly quality and either already published in, or of a standard appropriate to an international, peer-reviewed journal. Authors may be academics and scholars who are not affiliated with an HE institution.

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

‘New Scholars’ Category

Essays in this category will be ca. 4,000-7,000 words long and of highly developed scholarly quality appropriate to the author’s level of (postgraduate) study. Authors may be postgraduate students or students who have recently graduated.

Prize: £150 and a full set of the Library of Wales series of books published by Parthian.

Deadline: Essays must be submitted by email or by post by 15 December 2012.

Contact Alyce von Rothkirch for more information and to submit your essays:

The Library of Wales is a Welsh Assembly Government project designed to ensure that all of the rich and extensive literature in Wales that has been written in English will now be made available to readers in and beyond Wales. The series is published by Parthian Books. See the full catalogue at http://thelibraryofwales.com/

Our September enewsletter contains updates on news, events, book launches and special offers on classic titles in the Library of Wales range as well as related titles also published by Parthian Books.

We have a bargain for you this September. The Library of Wales classic The Volunteers has been selected by Amazon's Kindle store along with five more of Parthian's ebook titles to feature in their promotion '100 books under £2.99'.

For the whole of September new Library of Wales title The Volunteers, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Book Runner, A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind, Everything I Found on the Beach, Love and Other Possibilities, and The First XV are all available for only 99p!

Library of Wales classic, The Vounteers follows Lewis Redfern, once a radical, now a political analyst and journalist, as he investigates the deaths of a worker killed in the striking coalfields of Wales, and a government minister thought to be connected with the death, and pursues the sniper through an imbroglio of Civil Service leaks and international wheelings and dealings to secret organization – a source of insurrection far more powerful than anyone could have suspected – the Volunteers.

"Talking to my academic friend Claire Connolly the other evening we found ourselves discussing Lewis Jones' novels and she introduced me to the term 'sensational realism' and I thought how perfect, how extraordinarily apt.

"Cwmardy is nothing if not sensational: it's like one of those Brazilian tele-novelas where one action-packed, or emotionally-soaked incident follows on from another at a breathless lick."